Rob Freeman is an experienced and savvy fantasy football enthusiast and has been playing in multiple leagues for about 30 years. Rob has experience with many of the competitor’s products and has been instrumental since the early days of The Machine in helping to define a product from the viewpoint of the average fantasy football player.

This is what Rob is saying about The Machine 2011:

The Machine 2011 is a revolution in fantasy football software. Gone is the static, old school based philosophy of drafting by RB theory or utilizing some other kind of template. Magazines are not needed anymore for draft help and paying for the usage of fantasy football weekly cheat sheets is no longer the leading edge that they once were, as those personal opinions can be found everywhere. Enter The Machine 2011!

Some people think that the mathematical formulas that define The Machine 2011 will make fantasy football less fun to play because the Artificial Intelligence is superior to a random player's judgment. Other people wonder who can win the one available championship if two or more owners in that league are utilizing The Machine. The strengths and tools within The Machine are best when combined with the fantasy football player's intuition and skill. The Machine is a set of fantasy functions that break down the hardest fantasy decisions into easily viewed choices. Choices such as...

Who should you draft? The Machine gives you the top few players available at each position and ranks them as to who will help you the most. Want to see which free agents can help you more than your current players, during the season? The Machine utilizes data that is derived from schedules, weather, injuries and much more, then gives you actual names of up and coming fantasy scorers. Want to know who to start in an important regular season or playoff game when you have many equal choices between your players? The Machine will give you the edge that, in conjunction with our partners, top media outlets use to make similar decisions.

At the end of the day though, it is up to each and every player to choose amongst the choices that The Machine puts together for you. Even Tom Brady or Adrian Peterson have poor games and each fantasy player needs to utilize their gut instinct to truly choose the starters they are comfortable with. Tweaking your own player projections will alter how The Machine computes your edge, and is one of the real advantages that is placed at your fingertips. The Machine is there to simplify all aspects of fantasy football. The fantasy owner still is the one who pulls the trigger!

Rob's thoughts from the 2009 NFL Season:

It was the twelfth round of the 2009 fantasy football draft. I already had two starting running backs in Chris Johnson and DeAngelo Williams, my two super stud keepers from the prior season. I had selected the Panthers WR Steve Smith in the first round and Tom Brady in the second. I felt like I was way ahead of my league competition and my team was already beginning to rise to dominant status.

I wanted to take a rookie at any position with this pick but I wasn’t sure who. I knew that my friend Leonard was working on some fantasy sports software that crunches math and analyses player probabilities to suggest which player increases your odds of winning the championship at any given time of the season. I asked Leonard what The Machine recommended that I do.

The Machine indicated, very strongly, that WR was the most valuable choice for my current position and for my league itself. It also recommended that I get my 2nd TE. Even though I had been leaning toward Fred Taylor who looked like he might win NE’s rushing job, The Machine’s suggestions were fine with me, so I took the Eagles’ Jeremy Maclin. In subsequent rounds, now following The Machine’s recommendations more closely, I landed Vernon Davis, David Akers, and Ricky Williams. Then I picked the player who really helped me win the championship, and a player recommended by The Machine for the last four rounds, Sydney Rice in the 16th round. Rice will be a great keeper for years to come as will Davis and maybe Maclin. Looking at that draft now, I can see that rounds 1-5 produced players that scored a total of 1215 fantasy points for the year, including production from Chris Johnson. My picks from rounds 12-16 produced 982 points, which was excellent.

I now realize for the last few years, I had been drafting in a somewhat stagnant way. I ascribed to the running back theory in which two starting RB’s are chosen in the first two rounds. I usually picked the first QB or the last, the first TE or the last, and always picked the first defense. Every league has a fantasy point scoring system that dictates certain strategies but generally speaking, my drafting was questionable and too reliant on gut feelings. In fact, I’m not sure if I was focused more on choosing the most productive rookie, highlighting my keen sense of discerning new talent (bragging rights), or putting together a complete, winning team.

The Machine does not care about finding the best rookie or biggest surprise. It does not have to face scrutiny over picking a defense in the seventh round or a starting QB in the eighth. It is all in the math as to which player benefits my team the most at the time I am picking a player. I don’t want to draft solely without intuition so I will look at The Machine’s top 3 recommendations and hope that the player I already have in mind is amongst them. If he is, then I really feel confident that it’s a great pick. If not, I’ll look more closely at the numbers, even in the 16th round!

Now I am wondering which players The Machine will recommend as my best keepers for 2010!